Friday, November 25, 2011

The difference: Discrimination is more obvious and overt, where you target a group because they are different from you.
e.g: "I am firing you because you are dyslexic."

However, racism/other -isms are now socially unacceptable (at least in the UK). So people resort to Exclusion, which is more subtle and hidden, but nevertheless shows that you dislike a certain group.
e.g: being unfriendly to another race, trying to get as far away as possible from 'that brown dude', etc.

I remembered this one time, we were searching for a house, and the landlady was doing this

And one of the reasons why we discriminate and exclude is stereotyping. We generalise people and put judgments on them, even before we meet them.

So today i'd like to say something about stereotyping people who do D&T.

During the time of the Prophet, the Quraisy used to spread all kinds of propaganda to prevent people from listening to the call of Rasulullah.

"He's doing witchcraft. He's bewitching all of us to leave our stone idols."

"He's a poet. That's why he recites all these beautiful verses."

"He's crazy".

"He's a traitor who's trying to split the unity of us Arabs."

There was a man called At-Tufail ibn 'Amr. The Quraisy used to tell him all sorts of propaganda, until he stuffed his ears with cotton to block out the message of the Prophet.

But Allah guides whom He wills. One day, at-Tufail happened to meet the Prophet, cottons still in his ears. But you know, with cottons stuffed in your ear, you still hear something. And what at-Tufail heard was the most beautiful thing. The truth. The Quran. And experiencing the truth first hand, the propaganda of the Quraisy melted away, and at-Tufail became a guided Believer.

These things will still happen until the Day of Judgment.

"D&T people? I heard they're very closed-minded, have messy beards and have serious faces all the time. And they smell too. If i were you, i wouldn't get too close to them"

There sure are a lot of stereotypes, and im sure you've heard some of them. Not only negative stereotypes, but positive stereotypes as well. In fact, people sometimes expect D&T-ists to be perfect.

Thursday, November 24, 2011

These past few days, the Intelligence Bureau at Reflective Perspectives (with only one staff member -.-) has been picking up almost similar snapshots of the public mood..yes, this intelligence source is none other than Facebook:

"congratz malaysia!!"

"see, indonesia can't play!"

which sometimes degrades into..

"indonesians are dishonest"

"indonesians are creating a facebook page to condemn malaysians.."

"..please, don't respond to these provocations, this is a conspiracy to split muslims."

I'd like to give a gold star to that last commenter.

At the beginning of the 20th century, old empires started to crumble and lose their power. These were vast empires with control over huge territory, like the Ottoman Empire, Austro-Hungarian Empire and the Prussian Empire. Another important characteristic of these empires was that they ruled over a multi-ethnic society.

For example, the Ottoman Empire didn't just consist of Turks. There were Arabs, Greeks, Kurds, Greeks, Bulgarians, Armenians, and so on.

For the empires of Islam, what binded all of inhabitants together was islamic brotherhood, eventhough there was sometimes fighting amongst the rulers. This was what enabled to Ibn Battuta to travel far and wide throughout Dar-ul-Islam, the Muslim Lands.

But towards the end, islam and islamic principles no longer took centre stage in people's hearts. So people began to have a feeling that you're only my brother if you have my skin colour and speak my language.

Add that to a whole lot of other reasons, and the empires began to crumble into small nation states. So now there was Syria for Syrians, Turkey for Turks, and so on.

This happened throughout the muslim lands.

And there was Malaysia for Malaysians and Indonesia for Indonesians. There was a lot of nationalist sentiment all around. soulless nasionalism.

That things could degrade to such a level is a shame. Take the malay archipelago, for example. When Malacca was invaded by the Portuguese, the islamic Sultanate of Aceh and the Sultanate of Demak in Java tried to repel the invaders. Aceh and Java are in present-day Indonesia.

There is even a malay proverb,

"Kalau roboh Kota Melaka,
papan di Jawa kami tegakkan."
(If the city of Melaka crumbles, we will build a new one in Java)

International islamic solidarity.

'Umar ra had it right when he said,
"We were a humiliated people, and Allah gave us honour through islam. If we tried to seek honour through other ways, Allah would humiliate us again."

"The believers are nothing else than brothers (in Islâmic religion). So make reconciliation between your brothers, and fear Allâh, that you may receive mercy." (Al Hujurat:10)The history i present to you today is simplified, to know more there are lots of good books to read. But the main thing is,

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

WARNING: Accounting terminology coming up.
Accountants can choose different methods for accounting. So they say 'Method A' is good or 'Method B' is good, and come up with reasons. But sometimes they may say this method is good for the public interest, when actually they have underlying private interests. "Prawn behind the rock".

e.g. A company lobbies the government for lower tax. They give the reason that lower taxes encourage businesses and is good for the economy (public interest). But actually they want lower taxes to have more profits in the income statement, and the manager gets a fat bonus (private interest).

This is the market for excuses. Saying something noble as an excuse to do something selfish.

And as always in Reflective Perspectives, we do it the other way round. accounting class/daily life is just an excuse to talk about the big things:

There is a HUGE market for excuses nowadays. People give noble excuses for doing err, not-so-noble things:

"Why do i smoke? well i'm trying to help the malaysian economy you know."

We should be careful about the market for excuses, because it afflicts nearly everyone. Ever had that feeling that you really really want to do something, but its not really proper? And then to make it 'legal' you try and find ayat from the Qur'an, from hadeeth, anything that would support your wishes. If someone 'religious' says,

"..And if you were to follow their (Jews and Christians) desires after what you have received of Knowledge, then you would have against Allâh neither any Walî (protector or guardian) nor any helper." (Al Baqarah:120)

So be true to ourselves. Are we doing things for our own pleasure, or to gain the pleasure of Allah, Most High. We can give any amount of excuses, but Allah knows what is in every heart.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Friday, November 18, 2011

There's this one scene in Malcolm X, where another inmate says to Malcolm while they were in prison:

"Everywhere you go, you're in prison. Because its a prison of your mind."

We can't do as we like, when we like, however we like.

But as Ibn Taymiyyah said,

"what can my enemies to do me? My paradise is in my heart and it goes with me wherever I go. If they imprison me, it is private devotion with my Lord. If they kill me, it is dying for the sake of my Lord. If they drive me out of my land, it is making hijra for the sake of my Lord."

I do not know who you are while you are reading this. I do not know where you were born, who your family is, what your inner beliefs are. But i do know that to be have problems is to be human.

You might be stressed preparing for exams. You may have received a call saying "im sorry, he's..gone" You may be feeling inferior, all this while you're the top scorer, now you feel like you've achieved nothing.

On a loftier scale, you might be feeling really worried about the state of the ummah, and stressed because of your lack of efforts in helping.

You might be suffering under oppressive regimes. You might be worried because you just read Harian Metro this morning and thought "things are getting worse..what if this happened to my family?"

(It will be said to the pious): "O (you) the one in (complete) rest and satisfaction! Come back to your Lord, Well-pleased (yourself) and well-pleasing unto Him! Enter you, then, among My honoured slaves, And enter you My Paradise!"

"Say, [O Muhammad], To whom belongs the earth and whoever is in it, if you should know? They will say, To Allah . Say, Then will you not remember?" (Al Mu'minuun: 84-85)

So everyone, in their hearts, recognizes that natural state.

A friend of mine illustrated this beautifully. No matter what religion you are, you will always go to places like this

to get some peace of mind. Because these places are the creation of the Supreme Being, its all natural and magnificent, unlike our man-made structures.

My dad also gave a good analogy regarding asking people to return to their fitrah.

Let's say that someone shows you the shirt that you wore when you were in kindergarten. A Kikilala tshirt, for example.

"Abang, this is your tshirt."

"No its not, it's too small to be mine."

"But this is yours, see? Even has your name on it. See this spot over here. That's when you played in the rain and fell down in a muddy pool. See this little hole. You were riding on your bike but fell down, you came to us crying, but we made you some Milo and then you were alright."

It is our shirt. In the process of 'growing up', we might have forgotten about it, we might think that we're 'too big, too mature' for it, we might have 'moved on'.

"..Verily! Allâh will not change the condition of a people as long as they do not change their state themselves.." (Ar Ra'd: 11)

Allah has set the laws of the universe, and we call this sunnatullah. For example,

If we drink water, our thirst will be gone. This is sunnatullah. Imagine there's a water in the table in front of you. If you just scream out, "water! water!" The water will not magically fly to you, and you will become thirstier from screaming. You have to get up and take the glass of water.

If you just shout out "oh Allah help us! help us!" and just sit there doing nothing, nothing's going to happen either.Every day, babies get thrown away, children go hungry, families fall apart, drugs wreck people's lives, while we sit in inaction, with our comfortable homes, comfortable lives.

Now that is awesome. They talk to each other about the things that are important. "How is your iman (belief)", "did you do good deeds today", "please remind me of Allah".

Even the first thing that we would be asked in the grave is ما ربك, who is your Lord.

And the stories we hear about the Sahabah are not stories about their professions, what businesses they did, how they made money etc. Instead we hear about their legendary deeds, like the 3 people who were dying on the battlefield, and one of them was given water to quench his thirst. He declined and said

"give it to my companion"

the second person also declined and said to give the water to his companion.

the 3rd person also asked to give the water to his companion.

In the end all of them died, preferring their friends over themselves.

Maybe the sahabah knew that we have no time to lose, like Allah says

"The Day they see it, (it will be) as if they had not tarried (in this world) except an afternoon or a morning." (An-Nazi'aat : 46)

On Judgment Day, we will feel as if we spent only one afternoon on Earth.